M A I N   N E W S

No headway in plane hijack case

NEW DELHI, Dec 24 (UNI) — The investigation into the hijacking of Indian Airlines IC-814 from Kathmandu on December 24, 1999, is yet to make a headway with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) awaiting a response from the Interpol on the whereabouts of the five Pakistani hijackers, even as a year has elapsed since the unfortunate incident.

The New Delhi-bound flight with 193 passengers and crew members on board was hijacked soon after it took off from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on this day last year.

Though the agency has been in constant touch with the Interpol, the international police organisation has not yet provided any clue on the progress made for nabbing the hijackers. “We are yet to be intimated about the progress of the alert notice and the steps taken by the countries concerned to execute the direction,” CBI sources said.

Teams of the CBI have visited certain countries but so far have not been able to get concrete proof which can help solve the case.

On the request of the CBI, the Interpol had in July, sounded a red corner alert to Britain, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and Pakistan, among others, seeking the arrest of the hijackers who could be hiding in these countries. However, intelligence sources indicated that the probability of their being in hiding in Pakistan was high.

Meanwhile, there has been not much progress in the investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, which registered a case on the basis of the statement made by its national who was on the aircraft, sources in the FBI office here said.

The FBI has examined many passengers and crew and is working on the case registered against the five suspected hijackers of the IC-814 at its headquarters in Washington on the basis of the deposition made by US national Jean Moore who was on the hijacked flight.

The CBI is on the lookout for Pakistani hijackers Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Aqzi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter Sayed and Shakir and their accomplices Yusuf Azar and Abdul Rauf, who are believed to be the key conspirators.

Rauf and Azhar are believed to be the brother and brother-in-law, respectively, of Maulana Masood Azhar, one of the three militants released by the Indian Government. Azhar is said to be a resident of Bhawalpur while other hijackers belong to the port city of Karachi.

India had to release three hardcore ISI terrorists for the safety of 156 passengers and 11 crew who were held captive at Kandahar in Afghanistan for eight days between December 24 and December 31. The hijackers had released 26 women and children during the ordeal and killed Ripan Katyal, a Delhi-resident, who was returning after his honeymoon in the Nepalese capital.

Keeping in view the slow progress of the case on part of the Interpol, the agency formed a Special Investigating Team (SIT) and sent its investigators to Kathmandu and Dubai. The SIT visited Kathmandu and Dubai in an effort to establish Pakistan’s suspected involvement in the episode. The attempt of the agency was to acquire ‘clinching evidence’ against Pakistan for proving its role in the hijacking.

Hijack victims relive trauma

NEW DELHI, Dec 24 (UNI) — A year after December 24, 1999, hijacking of Indian Airlines IC-814 from Kathmandu, the victims today relived their eight-day trauma on the first anniversary of the incident.

Memories of the hijacking haunted the victims who lived under the shadow of death for full eight days in the aircraft.

The Indian Airlines flight with about 182 persons on board was hijacked by five Pakistani nationals soon after its take-off from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu en route to New Delhi. The hijacked aircraft was taken to Kandahar after brief halts at Amritsar and Dubai. It was only after three hardcore terrorists were released that the hijacking episode ended on December 31.

Blindfolded, famished and traumatised in the presence of five masked desperadoes, who had commandeered the IC 814 flight to Afghanistan, they remained huddled into their seats, fearing death. The hijackers, in fact, stabbed to death Ripan Katyal after he did not adhere to their instructions.

A year after they came out from the trapjaw of death, the survivors of the longest hijacking drama involving an Indian plane, which kept the nation on tenterhooks from December 24 to 31, 1999 continue to convulse recalling broken sleep, nightmares and cold sweat.

For Chandra Mohan Katyal, who lost his only son Ripan, the lone casualty of the hijacking, the gut-wrenching wounds are still afresh. Twenty-seven-year-old Ripan and his wife Rachna had boarded the plane after a honeymoon trip to Kathmandu, realising little that a tragedy lay in waiting. He was stabbed mercilessly and he bled to death.

“I was given $ 20,000 under the Warsaw Convention. But more important is that Rachna has got a job in the Personnel Department of Indian Airlines, which will keep her busy. She is also doing an MBA course,” Mr Katyal said, expressing gratitude to airlines officials.

Besides the loss of his son, there are other memories which rankle in his mind. “On March 21, US President Bill Clinton, during his visit to India, invited us at his Maurya Sheraton suite. He talked to us sympathetically, offered financial help, and described the tragedy as shameful.”

The political leaders of his own country had not even sent a word of consolation or sympathy to him, Mr Katyal said, ruefully. He also blamed laxity in the security system at airports and indifference of authorities for his personal tragedy.

“Only yesterday, I realised my eyes were brimming with tears. I can’t explain it...May be because it was this day last year when our trauma had started. The whole drama was re-enacted in a flash in my mind and my composure cracked up,” said Mrs Navneet Sharan, wife of Capt Devi Sharan who flew the ill-fated plane.

Mrs Sharan said on December 23 last year, she had gone to Hyderabad along with her daughters to buy pearls. From there she was to go to Sharjah to catch up with her husband on the Christmas-eve.

“Everything went awry. I put up a brave front on my face but things looked uncertain as days rolled on giving me excruciating pain. I prayed things would go well eventually.”

Her prayers were answered. The captain came back home, to a hero’s welcome. “But I was speechless...Didn’t know how to break into a conversation with the man who was my husband, and a brave one at that. That is why I love him.”

But the silver lining of the episode was that she has now become ‘practical’ in her approach towards life. The first thing my husband told me on coming back home was we have not got a house of our own. All the time during the captivity I was thinking about you and the children,” she recounts.

Now the Sharans have built a house and are shifting today. She says pragmatism has taught her to keep a track of LIC policies, which have now been inserted with nomination. “I have developed the capacity to take care of my house and my children,” she adds.

For Flight Purser Anil Sharma, lost his father on the sixth day of the hijacking. “My father had been ailing but the hijacking must have contributed to his death,” he said.

“Things have become normal. I have gone back to the job. But as December 24 is approaching, I am lapsing back into memories. It is not easy to forget when the `Chief’, one of the hijackers, whipped out his pistol and brought it close to my chest.”

He was a no-nonsense man and meant business, said the flight purser and recalled the December 31 threat by the hijackers to kill everyone. “It could have snuffed out the spunk and courage of the toughest of human beings, but we survived.”

Then, it was he and co-purser Sateesh who lifted the body of Ripan and brought it to Dubai, and “the memory of it continues to give me a terrible feeling and cold sweat,” Mr Sharma said. “But the one consolation is that the role of the cabin crew was appreciated by everyone, including the press.”